Agnete – Icebreaker

“Bizarre.”

Tim: So here’s Norway’s Eurovision entry; I know we did Eurovision tracks a few weeks back, but two things: first, this has a new video, and second, it’s worth discussing because a part of it is utterly bizarre.

Tom: I just can’t get used to it. I know if you listen to a song enough you’ll get used to it, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Tim: Nor me, really, but let’s start with the video, and it’s nice – plenty of ice, certainly, although disappointingly little breaking. And then there’s the music, which (justly) beat Norwegian Daz. The verses are great – they have a Euphoria-esque quality to them, with the backing underneath sounding very similar and then the standard but effective build in the pre-chorus.

Tom: There’s a few late-90s synth patches in there as well, which surprisingly work well.

Tim: Very true – there’s lots of good stuff there. Except then we go quiet for a bit, and suddenly the chorus comes in with a completely different time signature, dropping from your standard 4/4 down to two step, and it’s entirely weird. The quiet bits each side of the chorus I can only assume have been put there to make that a bit less distracting.

Tom: It’s just such a bizarre choice: everything changes so much, it’s like there are two completely different production teams working on it, and some notes got lost between them.

Tim: All of this doesn’t make it a bad song, of course – it’s a great chorus coupled with very good verses, and the vocals and production are all top notch. I just slightly wish they were verses and choruses from the same song, because this isn’t a song I’d hugely look forward to dancing to.